Zambia

Country Profile

In Zambia, Agriculture plays a key role in the
economy and could be a major driver of growth and poverty reduction. The sector
is characterized by a dual structure, where a small number of large commercial
farms, concentrated along the railway line, co-exist with scattered subsistence
smallholders and few small commercial farmers who face severe difficulties
accessing input and output markets. It is estimated that about 40 percent of
rural households are engaged solely in subsistence agriculture. While the
agricultural sector has long been neglected by the government’s urban bias and
single-minded emphasis on maize for food self-sufficiency, the country’s
infrastructure, extension services and agricultural research and development
remain underdeveloped, especially in remote rural areas (Bonaglia, 2008). Since the early 1990s, agricultural policy has
undergone a major change, shifting from heavy government intervention to a
liberalized system aimed at bolstering private sector participation in various
aspects of agricultural production including input supply, processing,
marketing and extension service provision. For a full report on the pluralistic agricultural extension system in Zambia, click HERE

Public Research Institution with Extension Unit

"ZARI
is one of the nine Departments in the Ministry of Agriculture and
Cooperatives. ZARI has the mandate to provide agricultural services and
conduct public good as well as farmer demand-driven research in soils,
rain-fed and irrigated crops, plant protection and farming systems."

Pre- and In-Service Training for Extension Professionals

"Education is part of the School of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Zambia. The Department offers a Bachelor of Science degree programme with a specialization in Agricultural Economics. The Department has expertise in all areas within the field of Agricultural Economics and Extension Education. These areas include Project Appraisal, Monitoring, and Evaluation; Agribusiness Management; Rural Sociology; Extension Education; Agricultural Marketing, Agricultural Policy; Agricultural Finance; Econometrics; Micro and Macro Economics, International Trade, Research Methods, etc. These areas of agricultural economics and extension are fully offered in the various courses that are taught to undergraduate students.

Related Resources

"The ACF promotes in a non-partisan manner, evidence based private-public sector dialogue, consultation and participation in the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of agricultural sector policies and programmes."